Meet Charles W. Follis, a pioneering, two-sport Black athlete you've maybe never heard of
Decades before Jackie Robinson broke MLB's color barrier, Follis played professional football and baseball in Ohio, where he crossed paths with future Dodgers GM Branch Rickey.
WOOSTER, Ohio — Little did I know. For four years as a student at the College of Wooster, I was entirely naive to one of the school’s most important alumni. But last fall, I was back on campus enjoying a tour of nostalgia (hardly a unique exercise for anyone who reflects fondly upon their undergraduate days), taking the time to explore what had changed and what had stayed the same since I graduated in 2017.
And while walking a familiar route from the library toward the dorms, I noticed a sign near the quad that surely wasn’t there during my time at Wooster. The large text at the top seized my attention: “Charles W. Follis – The First African American Professional Football Player.
” If that title weren’t intriguing enough, the subhead explaining the sign’s location piqued my curiosity: “The College of Wooster’s Original Baseball Field. ” Somehow, this chance encounter on a stroll through my old stomping grounds was my introduction to Follis, a remarkable figure who has captivated me in the months since, as I’ve scrambled to get up to speed on an individual whose story I had overlooked. The next two paragraphs on the sign offered the basics of Follis’ background, confirming an astonishing reality: More than a century ago, this small Ohio town — one I never knew to harbor grander historical significance — was a crucial early setting for one of the most impactful athletes of an era and one whose brief yet brilliant careers in football and baseball featured a fascinating link to one of the most celebrated trailblazers in American history.
That trailblazer is Jackie Robinson, whose legacy is celebrated Wednesday across Major League Baseball with the league’s annual honoring of Robinson breaking baseball’s color barrier with the Brooklyn Dodgers on April 15, 1947. Robinson’s Dodgers debut unquestionably marked the beginning of a new era for baseball and American professional sports, and his story is well-worth commemorating on a regular basis. But Robinson integrating the majors was also a long overdue triumph after decades of Black athletes pushed for equality and respect, few of whom ever gained a fraction of the recognition that Robinson receives today, yet all of whom suffered horrific hardships in their efforts to defy the overwhelming tone of racial prejudice in America.
Continue to the original source for the full article.